PETITION: BRING THE BIBLE BACK TO SCHOOL

DOWNLOAD PAPER PETITION

“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

For nearly one hundred years, Idaho public school students heard the Bible read by their teachers, without instruction or comment, at the beginning of each school day. 

Daily school Bible readings were a common practice in nearly every state until the middle of the twentieth century. This traditional practice was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Vidal v. Girard’s Executors (1844), which declared:

"Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the [schools]—its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?"

The framers of the Idaho Constitution agreed, intentionally crafting our founding document in such a way as to allow the Bible to be read in public schools. As William H. Clagett (R-Shoshone), President of the Idaho Constitutional Convention, warned: 

"[T]o exclude the children of the state from access to this great reservoir of moral principles and political maxims of daily duty [found in Scripture would do] a great injustice to the state at large."

Unfortunately, the Bible has not been read aloud in Idaho schools since a federal court invalidated the practice in 1963.

It’s time for Idaho to put the Bible back into our public schools so that children can once acknowledge God and hear His Word proclaimed in the classroom. Sign our petition today!

 

NOTE: If you want to help gather signatures, you can download and print paper petition sheets by clicking this link. Please be sure to return them by December 1, 2024.